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That Tony Blair prayed about whether to go to war with Iraq? All of us, when faced with big decisions, do what we think is best and morally okay within our own set of morals. All Blair is saying is that his soul-searching involves prayer.

Now I have major issues with how Blair has actually handled the whole Iraq/terror issue but I'm absolutely fine with the prayer thing. He's a Christian, of course he prays about massive decisions.

I agree in the sense that if I were leader I would not set laws to force people to behave in the way I think they should - e.g. making it illegal to lie - as that would be an outrageous abuse of power.

But - we all have a worldview or philosophy of life. Some of them are religious, others not. But your worldview is bound to affect what you say and do, isn't it? I try to live my life according to my beliefs and I think that applies to everyone, although our beliefs obviously differ widely from person to person.

saying that you should ignore your religion when making a major decision is like saying people should keep politics out of the work place. these things are all connected. his religion defines his moral makeup (unless he's just lying like some people do with religion to gain credibility) and i would be surprised if he wasn't thinking about it in relation to his job. And anyway Blair doesn't strike me as some crazy fundamentalist who thinks god is telling him what to do. I think he knows his own mind and is ultimately reponsible for the decisions he makes.

I just think it's a bit ridiculous. They probably prayed before the crusades. There is more to this....i am a bit too tired to explain clearly though so just believe i have a valid point and i'll get back to you

like Bush with his messages from god telling him to kill people and steal their oil in the name of decency.

Blair with his 'I spoke to god and he cleared my conscience that I was doing the right thing' is too scary. This is an unproven being who some consider to be all powerful, others consider to be as valid as the easter bunny.

I'm sure many did pray before the crusades so you've got a point there. But I don't think Blair is trying to absolve himself of responsibility, I think he is saying that his faith guides his actions and he asks God to direct him. I do that all the time but it still means I'm responsible for what I do.

this is when I started getting worried with religion. when you have to be exact, doctrinaire to be counted. For the love of God - personal interpretation of religion should be seen as a good free thinking thing - not something that isn't fo' real.

i was being flippant in my intital post - this figure is based on census returns. i think Blair probably thought he would look good if he said to parky and his old women style audience that he does have 'depth'

but I think it is also something to do with competitiveness and gameplaying. Like, surely he dislikes the interviewers who put him under pressure - so why give your sparring partner an easy time. And there's the audience to consider, always.

I think someone who says they're a Christian but never prays, reads the Bible or meets up with others to praise God, encourage each other etc. probably isn't really a Christian. I reckon a better way of putting it is to ask whether someone is a disciple (student, follower etc) of Jesus, trying to live their life as Jesus would live it.

Britain is so not a Christian country any more. But, in response to Mungo, how can his beliefs not affect his decision-making?? Everything we do is affected by what we believe (what we really believe, not what we say we believe). Although a referendum would have made sense, as long as there was a proper information-raising campaign beforehand.

It's as if every time he makes a crap decision he can just go "It's alright, I prayed to God and He says I'm right". I don't like the idea of a man who believes that kind of stuff leading a basically secular country to war.

Anyway, I reckon there's far more practising Muslims than practising Christians in this country now.

All people who practice a religion should be barred from public office? But I totally agree that it's not on to justify your actions by saying that you prayed so it's alright. We are all free agents (I believe) with responsibility for what we do and say. Whether we have faith or not doesn't change that at all.

some of our best prime ministers were religious men. Gladstone needed persuading to choose politics over becoming a minister. But he had the sense to follow his moral compass without dodging blame, something Blair simply cannot do.

"The only way you can take a decision like that is to try to do the right thing according to your conscience."

He said: "I think if you have faith about these things, then you realise that that judgement is made by other people... and if you believe in God, it's made by God as well."

When asked if he had prayed to God on the matter, he replied: "I don't want to go into that... you struggle with your own conscience about it... in the end, you do what you think is the right thing."

Now I take that to mean that the judge of whether it was the right thing to do or not is made by the people, and if you believe in God, by God. All he's saying is that he wanted to do the right thing and that he believes that he will ultimately be accountable to God as to whether or not it was the right thing to do. I don't see a problem with him expressing that belief - not in the House of Commons, but on a personal level on a chat show.

i was going to say exactly that. suicide bombers do it because 'god says it's ok', apparently. where does blair get off using god as his conscience? he's opened up a fucking great big can of worms, it makes me so angry. what does it say to the world when he justifies his actions through god? why are we to believe that he is right when a suicide bomber (or for that matter any murderous fundamentalist, of any religion) who uses religion to justify murder is wrong?

If Blair is religious then evidently his faith will come into play when making decisions. He won't resolutely refuse to pray when important judgements need to be made; he'll do completely the opposite.

If you don't believe in God, then where's the problem? The decision to go to war in Iraq won't have come from God, because God doesn't exist. So therefore it must come from Blair himself, internally - like he said, it's an issue of conscience.

Which leaves only the accusation that he's trying to "divert the blame" for the Iraq war to God. And that's just silly.

Come on people. Religion doesn't make Blair's decisions wrong. It doesn't undermine his position, and it certainly isn't a good reaon to criticise his decision-making over Iraq. Find some actual, substantive grounds to do that on instead of resorting to personal insults.

making a statememnt a couple of years ago when he was acting the cowboy at Bush's ranch that he had examined his conscience about invading another country on behalf of another country and had decided that when he went before St Peter he'd be confident he'd be a shoo in.

Stuff like this just worries me greatly. The world is in a very serious situation just now. This is mostly due to religion and people, on all sides, who use religion as a means of control and to entrench themselves in positions of power over others. Iraq wasn't invaded because it was a just thing to do on behalf of god's creations, it was a business decision.

the point is that his saying that, publicly, dangerously undermines any opposition on his part to anyone's using religious fundamentalism as justification for extremist violence. don't you think? don't you think it's beyond naive for him to bring religion into the equation? come on, it's not as simple as 'the decision was wrong because it involved religion', you know. he has as much right as anyone else to a belief-system, but IN PRIVATE. his SAYING PUBLICLY that his religion plays a part in the war on iraq moves us - the UK as a whole - further into a sphere where the political and the religious are interwined, and what hope is there then for us to be able to achieve political harmony in a multi-faith world?

you maybe have to try to consider how his words might have sounded to someone who isn't christian, living in this country or otherwise. i think someone up there ^ already said it, but there are really quite a lot of people of different faiths than the christian norm in this multi-cultural country, i would imagine that they would rather feel that they were voting for a POLITICAL standpoint, rather than a RELIGIOUS one.

a secular state. It's a Christian state. Secularism is not an important part of our political tradition, as it is in some other EU countries - France for example. Just look at the way the system is set up: rightly or wrongly, politics and religion are still very much intertwined here. For what it's worth, I disagree with this entirely, but that's the way it is. PMs inevitably say that people are "in their prayers" because that's still the standard political phraseology.

I guess my point is - if we want to change that, fine. Let's set about campaigning for change. But that debate is not what this thread is about. It's about people making a fuss over the fact that Tony Blair, who is (or purports to be) a Christian, has admitted that he prayed about the Iraq issue. He categorically did not say that "God told him to do it" - which is why I think the extremist violence comparison is unhelpful. He said it was an issue of conscience - and to be honest, if he hadn't said that, that would have worried me far more deeply.

As for the implications of his remarks for multicultarlism in Britain... again, it's another debate. Personally - and I know that in all likelihood I'll be shot down in flames for saying this - I think multiculturalism has a lot of drawbacks. I guess I just don't see why this can be used as an objection to Blair expressing, on a personal level, the processes he went through when making a given decision. It just seems like people are aiming for an easy target in the shape of the whole "religion" thing, without any real reason for doing so.

First of all, let me state for the record that I am not an apologist for Blair, over Iraq or anything else. As I have said repeatedly - both above and on other threads - that is not even close to being the truth. However, I shall say it again now for the avoidance of doubt, so at least we agree on something.

To start at the beginning. If I'm reading you correctly, your first point is this: Blair should not "seek guidance from God" on major political issues, regardless of whether or not we believe God actually exists. I'll be honest and say I really don't see what your objection is here. I can only restate my previous argument: if you don't believe in God, then the decision comes from Blair. If you do believe in God, then the decision comes from Blair, even if he "sought God's guidance". He has never tried to divert responsibility from himself over the Iraq issue. So where's the problem? Your point (I think) is about accountability, and if his beliefs don't affect that, then your argument is consequently redundant.

Your second point I agree with (broadly). "the arguement is not whether or not he should have beliefes but why he felt it was him who should solely decide and not look for guidance from the people who put him there." What you are in effect suggesting here is a referendum on the Iraq issue, which is fair enough. That's not what I'd do about it - I'd do something more fundamental, and actually try to deal with Parliament's impotency in the hope that it would stop measures like this from being whipped through. But you've made my point for me in the first sentence - the real issue here is how Blair dealt with Iraq politically. It is nothing to do with his beliefs. Since even you admit this, I find it hard to see why you're so keen to bring religion back into it.

As for your last paragraph - what can I say? I knew someone would misunderstand me and give me a good ol'-fashioned flaming for daring to question the infinitely wise tenets of liberal capitalism. The worst bit is, I can't even tell you how wrong you are - I'm not a member of the "send em' back to where they came from" brigade, far from it. All I'm trying to say is - like all other such ideals - multiculturalism DOES NOT promote a harmonious society. How can it? It actually fosters racial tension. BUT, that's another thread, and I'm not going to go into it here. Suffice to say that I find your (utterly unfounded) accusations of nationalistic supremacy to be quite offensive.

I have deliberately tried to remain politically ambiguous in this thread, but I have been forced into explaining myself because I dared to question the assumption that Blair should have to remove his beliefs from certain areas of his life. I felt like my point was explained in such a way that I needn't have had to do that, but evidently I was wrong - but then again, I am a "fool", so maybe I shouldn't be surprised.

For the record (not that it should matter, but here we are) I also happen to think it was the wrong decision. But that's got nothing to do with Blair's beliefs. I just don't see why people feel this overwhelming need to blame religion for everything. "Oh, he's religious, let's rant incoherently about how that might possibly in some way make his bad decisions worse."

It just doesn't add up, and I think people are being ridiculous about it.

I'd also add that a few people on this thread sound like they believe that a decision made on religious grounds is a decision made in spite of the evidence. Maybe that's what happened with Blair's decision to go to war but when I have a big decision to make, I weigh up the pros and cons, consider the available evidence and then do what I feel is right *given what information I have*. Because I'm a Christian, the 'do what I feel is right' bit involves praying and trying to do what God would have me do. For non-religious people, their judgement of the best course of action (given what they know) would not involve prayer but both sets of people take into account the available evidence.

Except in Bush's case, where he really seems to believe that his God (who apparently told his followers to love their enemies and bless those who curse them) told him to start a war.